Eclectic Thoughtshttps://eclectic-thoughts.com
blogging home of Summer...she's a little weird, a little geeky, a little sad, but always realSat, 14 Sep 2019 01:36:14 +0000en-US
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3232104217741Fezhttps://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/09/fez/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/09/fez/#respondSat, 14 Sep 2019 01:36:14 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=2236Last week, I opened up platformer with a twist, Fez to give it a whirl, having gotten it free from Epic. I normally am not one for playing platformers on PC, but free certainly beats $13 for it on PS4 so…yeah, PC it is LOL I’d gotten curious about Fez from hearing Rob on Playstation […]

]]>Last week, I opened up platformer with a twist, Fez to give it a whirl, having gotten it free from Epic. I normally am not one for playing platformers on PC, but free certainly beats $13 for it on PS4 so…yeah, PC it is LOL I’d gotten curious about Fez from hearing Rob on Playstation Access gushing over it more than once, which was another reason to take advantage of the giveaway.

Fortunately, Pez has relatively simple controls and lets you use arrows to move (I seriously hate using WASD), so I was able to play it with little trouble. The basic concept is fairly simple: you play as Gomez, a 2D creature who suddenly discovers a third dimension when he’s tasked to save the world! You explore the world to collect bits of cubes that will unlock more doors and become the key to saving Gomez’s world.

The world is very much like a traditional 2D platform, but with the twist of you being able to shift perspective by turning the 3rd dimension. As you progress through the game, that mechanic is used in some very creative ways to keep the gameplay fresh and challenging. Many jumps and areas to access will require figuring out how to get there through the different “sides” of the world or to otherwise utilize the perspective shift creatively to continue on.

The artwork is quite lovely and hits those nostalgia spots so nicely. Getting around is both easy and difficult, as it is fairly easy to find yourself wondering just where the heck you are as you keep going deeper and deeper into new levels when you thought you were just going through a single door. More than once I ended up redoing big chunks of the game trying to get back to some other spot, as the game map is only marginally useful for navigation (mostly it lets you see where a specific door goes and if you’ve “finished” that area).

In addition to unique elements for each major area that fit the overall theme of that world’s design, Fez does have some light puzzle elements. Most of these are geared towards getting optional items, like treasure maps, artifacts, and anti-cubes (which I STILL don’t know the purpose of LOL). Several of the puzzles pay homage to Tetris which is just fun, and there are some musical puzzles that, if you play on PC, you’d do well to do with headphones on (doing it with speakers was aggravating!).

As far as platformers go, I’d say Fez is a pretty good one for folks who maybe struggle with harder ones like Crash Bandicoot, Donkey Kong Country, or the like. There are no enemies in the game. You can only die by falling, landing in non-swimmable liquid, or jumping into a black hole, and the game just puts you back on your last platform. Not dealing with tons of lost progress or “haha you died” screens reduces some of the stress and frustration when you spend a few deaths figuring out a particular jump/climb sequence. I think this makes it very approachable for someone wanting to try a platformer without a huge time commitment or the sheer frustration some bigger ones can cause.

That said, even though I do play larger, more difficult platformers, I still found Fez entertaining, challenging, and at times cuss inducing as I worked out which way(s) I needed to flip the perspective to make my way from one spot to another. I also had a nice sense of accomplishment when I worked out some of those puzzles or particularly tricky jumps. Finishing the game took me roughly 8 hours spread across 3 or 4 days.

One disappointment playing via Epic – no achievements :-/ I’m not a diehard trophy/achievement hunter, but I do like earning them some (even though I’m used to not getting them on the PS2 and older consoles), so if I’d actually bought the game I’d have aimed for Steam or PS4 instead. Still, it is a game I highly recommend and I hope you’ll enjoy as much as me

]]>https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/07/2019-game-backlog-july-update/feed/018742019 Goals: 2nd Quarter Progresshttps://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/06/2019-goals-2nd-quarter-progress/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/06/2019-goals-2nd-quarter-progress/#respondSun, 30 Jun 2019 13:00:53 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=1685Some nice progress on the fitness goals, with all my weights being stepped up, getting me closer to the overall goal, and I met some of my swimming goals. We’ve switched back to working out at lunch instead of the evening, but we should still be able to do our full workout routines and will […]

]]>Some nice progress on the fitness goals, with all my weights being stepped up, getting me closer to the overall goal, and I met some of my swimming goals. We’ve switched back to working out at lunch instead of the evening, but we should still be able to do our full workout routines and will hopefully be even better about being consistent with it. I also finished several goals, in part thanks to my sleep restriction meaning I’m awake 20-21 hours a day, giving me plenty of time to get things done. Being up in the morning also means getting more done on the garden, which my budget appreciated since I was able to do the cleanup and stuff needed myself versus paying my lawn guys. I’m also still able to keep up with the mowing, at least for now.

I’d planned to add another goal, to build an admin system for An Eclectic World, but I actually got it done before it was time for this update! LOL So yay! I did add two new goals, which will be tricky with my budget but are needed. The couch smells of cat pee and I just can’t get the smell out (Fusion was peeing on it almost daily before she passed) and my mattress is over 10 years old and has big dips in it.

Financials

Credit card balance below $6,000

Fitness and Health

Strength training targets – raised all weights in May and added upright row which we added to our routine this year!

]]>https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/06/2019-goals-2nd-quarter-progress/feed/01685Keeping Active User Logged In in ZF3https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/06/keeping-active-user-logged-in-in-zf3/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/06/keeping-active-user-logged-in-in-zf3/#respondFri, 07 Jun 2019 19:05:50 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=1893With all of our Zend Framework 2 apps, our users can stay logged in as long as they are active – as determined by them essentially hitting pages within the app. If they stopped navigating around, the system would time them out after X amount of time (usually 20 minutes, but app dependent) or if […]

]]>With all of our Zend Framework 2 apps, our users can stay logged in as long as they are active – as determined by them essentially hitting pages within the app. If they stopped navigating around, the system would time them out after X amount of time (usually 20 minutes, but app dependent) or if they closed their browser. This kept users from getting time out in the middle of an action (something that is very annoying!) while still ensuring that they were automatically logged out if they walked away from the app without logging out themselves (a frequent issue).

As I’ve mentioned before, we’re now in the process of transitioning to ZF3. While the organization and dependency handling in ZF3 changed significantly, most of the core helper components didn’t seem to have major changes. In some ways, this has been great as we could reuse much of the existing code to speed up the redo…this has also been bad because we could reuse much of the existing code. Let’s be honest, we developers are still human and copy/paste is way faster than retyping it all from scratch. So some stuff we’d copy, paste, then clean up to current standards, including bringing it to PSR-2 standards and implementing the lovely typing abilities of PHP 7.

In doing so, though, we have also hit snags where the underlying ZF3 components had, in fact, changed. Some we stumbled on quick. For example, the AbstractValidator’s isValid function no longer has a $context parameter, so we had to update our instances to comply with that spec. Another one we caught after we’d already done 2 apps and were well on to the third. Namely (and to bring it back around to the start of this whole post), the same basic code we’d used for our authentication stuff was no longer keeping active users logged in! And while the broader context had changed a bit, the actual code to store the authenticated user in Identity was pretty much line for line identical, meaning something in the underlying AuthenticationService’s Result had changed.

Some Googling confirmed that we weren’t the only one having this issue with ZF3, but what we weren’t seeing was anyone who actually had a solution! Not good. We tried a few of the suggested possibilities, but much like the original posters, found they didn’t work. One promising solution worked a little too well and just stopped logging them out altogether. Whoops!

We continued working through the records, while occasionally revisiting the issue and testing any new hints we found, until finally, finally, we hit on the solution. And so, yeah, I’m posting about it one – in case I forget down the road (LOL) and two – to help the others in the same situation who get frustrated with the lack of a single solution. Here’s hoping this saves someone else a lot of hours of searching, testing, frustration, and all that.

I’ll start by saying that our basic Authentication system is based on the seemingly standard way of doing it in ZF3, which is already well detailed by Oleg Krivtsov in his free Using Zend Framework 3 book (his version is so much easier to get through than Zend’s own examples). So if you need to know how to implement user authentication at all, check that out first. The only difference with our system is that our authentication is done through a CAS system, but that doesn’t have any bearing on the actual issue (we confirmed it’s the same on a regular user-authenticated system as well). For ease of discussion, I’ll presume you stuck with Oleg’s example and your authentication module is called User. If you called it something else (we did), then just adjust the references accordingly

So, this solution has a few parts. First, it starts with the cookie settings in your global config – namely, due to whatever change was made in ZF3, whatever time outs you set there will be the timeout period. As such, you’ll need to up the time outs significantly to allow for the average time a user would likely be in your app – in our case, we went with the standard 8-hour workday. Anyone working 8 hours straight in our app needs a vacation anyway! Feel free to lower this to match your own user needs (really 4 hours is probably good).

To be honest, I’m not 100% certain that part is absolutely necessary, but it’s part of what works so we kept it in. It seemed like good practice either way.

Now for the core part – implementing a manual time out function! This is the function that will make sure your users get time out if they stop being active while keeping them logged in if they continue using the app. We also need to make sure they still get logged out if the browser is closed too. Let’s head to User\Service\AuthManager. In the Login function, find this line:

$result = $this->authentication_service->authenticate();

then after it, add this line to ensure we get logged out on browser closed:

$this->session_manager->forgetMe();

Also, at the top of our class, add a new private variable:

private $timeout = 60 * 20; // time out in 20 minutes

This is your app’s REAL inactive time out, so adjust accordingly. Now, let’s add our time out function, called simply checkTimeout.

As you can see, we basically check the current time against the time the account should have timed out to see if they sat on a page for longer than the allowed inactive time. If so, we force logged them out and kick back a true variable. If not, we update their last active time accordingly and continue on. But where did that time out variable come from? For that, we head to the AuthAdapter. In your authenticate function, when you set the identity of the logged in user, you just need to manually add the time out variable, like so:

Specifically, after confirming we have a logged in user, we call our checkTimeout function. If it comes back true, meaning they had timed out, we set a helpful message and kick them back to the login screen. And that’s it You can test it’s working by setting your inactive time out to something short, like 1-2 minutes, just to see it in action.

]]>https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/06/keeping-active-user-logged-in-in-zf3/feed/01893Eastshadehttps://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/05/eastshade/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/05/eastshade/#respondThu, 09 May 2019 22:24:21 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=1807Eastshade is an open-world exploration/adventure game from indie studio Eastshade Studios and available via Steam. The company describes the game thusly: You are a traveling painter, exploring the island of Eastshade. Capture the world on canvas using your artist’s easel. Talk to the inhabitants to learn about their lives. Make friends and help those in […]

]]>Eastshade is an open-world exploration/adventure game from indie studio Eastshade Studios and available via Steam. The company describes the game thusly:

You are a traveling painter, exploring the island of Eastshade. Capture the world on canvas using your artist’s easel. Talk to the inhabitants to learn about their lives. Make friends and help those in need. Discover mysteries and uncover secrets about the land. Surmount natural impasses to reach forgotten places. Experience how your actions impact the world around you.

As you might expect from a game touting you playing as a painter, entering the world of Eastshade is entering a world of lush forests, incredibly detailed buildings, and beautiful waterways. From the smallest flower to the largest tower, every element in the game is lovingly crafted and presented in a way that will make you yearn to pull out those brushes and start painting scene upon scene.

But, before you get too painting happy, your character (whom you name yourself), has to deal with surviving a shipwreck on their way to Eastshade, with their primary goal being to memorialize their late mother. Alas, the accident has left them penniless and clutching nothing but their precious easel. This means you’ll need to acquire your own canvas upon which to paint (though it’s never stated, it seems you do also have a magical supply of every color paint under the sun).

Fortunately, most of the citizens of Eastshade are good folk and are happy to help you out of your jam, whether by providing shelter from the brutally cold nights, throwing a few coins your way, or offering up odd jobs and quests you can complete. Starting with the smaller town of Lyndow, you’ll eventually get the urge to explore further and further afield until you reach the much larger city of Nova. Along the way, you’ll make friends, and perhaps a few enemies depending on your attitude and choices, and have plenty of opportunities for painting for pleasure and profit.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game, spending some eleven hours within it, perhaps more. I enjoyed the little stories of the three dozen plus quests that are available, with several feeding into each other and/or being required to be done to complete the main quest of finding and painting your mother’s favorite views. There are also various paintings you can complete for profit, including commissions in Nova that can help fatten up your otherwise thin purse (and get you a source of unlimited canvas!!)

As far as I could find, there are no limits on what you can paint, other than the obvious one of running out of canvas. In the earlier parts of the game, before you reach the source (and funds) in Nova, scrounging up the parts to make your own canvas is a bit thin. For a game that clearly is designed with you painting any scene your heart desires as a core part of its play mechanism, it could certainly afford to be far more generous with canvas or to even make them as magically unlimited as your paint supply is. Still, I managed well enough with what I found, over painting a few items here and there to earn coin but ending the game with a surplus of canvas by the time I was done.

The peoples of Eastshade being one of four species of animal (deer, owl, bear, or ape – I think chimp, maybe bonobo) was an interesting twist and even was discussed in terms of historical context and how the species live in one particular side quest. What your own character looks like or their species (or even gender) is never stated and there are no mirrors with which to check yourself out anywhere in the world. I suspected the character was female based on the higher sounds of breathing when freezing at night, but they were also referred to as “pal” so could still go either way.

Honestly, there is much to love about this game. The music is a perfect accompaniment to the tranquil scenes you’ll find yourself walking through, and the painting and exploring are at such a relaxing pace that it can be a nice breather from more active adventure games. There were only two major flaws in the game that come to mind as I write this review, the first more minor, the second a bit less so.

First, the tutorial is sadly lacking. While the game does sort of lead you into walking, it doesn’t tell you how it’s just presumed you know the standards keys of AWSD. If you aren’t a heavy PC gamer like me or you play more point and click games, then you may wrongly presume you use mouse movement before getting the hang of it. But really, the bigger issue with the tutorial is what’s left untaught. Figuring out movement was easy enough, but I was eight hours in before I realized my character could jump (SPACE BAR for anyone else wanting to know), and the fishing sub game is completely unexplained as far as I can recall – I had to figure out on my own how to work it, and when that failed I had to turn to help in the Steam community hub. Maybe I’d have eventually stumbled on the method on my own, but for an otherwise chill game, working out a basic mechanic isn’t really how I want to spend my time.

As I said, those issues were relatively minor and were only minor stumbling blocks of my fun of the game. The much bigger one was the bugginess, especially the further into the game I got. The game froze on me more than a dozen times as I played, usually, when fast traveling either using a tea or because I was forced to by the freezing cold. Once such freeze cost me an hour of gameplay time because I foolishly trusted the autosave and hadn’t realized how little it was actually saving. After that, I found myself always manually saving before fast traveling just to be safe, since usually a forced shut down and restart would let me continue on from whatever spot it froze at.

Still, overall, I’d highly recommend this game and really enjoyed my time playing it. (okay, one other minor issue…so many kitties and I couldn’t pet them!!!)

]]>https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/05/eastshade/feed/01807Firewatchhttps://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/04/firewatch/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/04/firewatch/#respondSat, 27 Apr 2019 22:43:26 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=1763In addition to several console games, I was gifted a couple of games from my wish list on Steam for my birthday. One of those was Firewatch, a first-person mystery released in 2016 by Campo Santo and Panic. So as usual, let’s start with what Steam says: The year is 1989. You are a man […]

]]>In addition to several console games, I was gifted a couple of games from my wish list on Steam for my birthday. One of those was Firewatch, a first-person mystery released in 2016 by Campo Santo and Panic. So as usual, let’s start with what Steam says:

The year is 1989. You are a man named Henry who has retreated from his messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. Perched high atop a mountain, it’s your job to look for smoke and keep the wilderness safe. An especially hot, dry summer has everyone on edge. Your supervisor Delilah is available to you at all times over a small, handheld radio—your only contact with the world you’ve left behind. But when something strange draws you out of your lookout tower and into the forest, you’ll explore a wild and unknown environment, facing questions and making choices that can build or destroy the only meaningful relationship you have.

The story starts like many walking simulators, with some story set up of Henry’s life and what led him to decide to become a fire-watcher in Wyoming. He’s greeted by his supervisor Delilah, who questions him on what he is running from before they play a guessing game about why each is there. After, she finally lets Henry sleep after his two-day hike to his tower. One long snooze later, he’s ready to get to his supposed job, of looking for smoke and signs of fire, but almost immediately he is tasked with dealing with idiots setting of fireworks in the dry wood.

Billed as a mystery, Firewatch spans over two months in the characters lives, as you guide Henry through the wilderness to accomplish different tasks. To aid him he has a seemingly bottomless backpack, some supply caches, a map, and a compass. As far as I could tell, he didn’t even bring a good old Swiss Army knife with him, it might have come in handy. Oh, and he has a radio, with which he has conversations with Delilah, sometimes on things he finds, sometimes on places he sees, and often about each other. Make sure to look at the journal, it is hilarious! I cracked up!

Much of the time is spent walking in the woods, which are colorful and lush, yet also sparse. Their design not pushing the envelope, but also visually pleasing and certainly high enough caliber for an indie game. I enjoyed moving through the grass, passing trees, and the attention to detail as Hank climbs rocks or repels on ropes.

As the game moves on, though, things go from ordinary to odd. Someone, or something, is in the woods that doesn’t belong and seems to have an excessive interest in Henry, and Delilah. With fire season starting, it’s up to the player to lead Henry through solving this mystery, all while accompanied by the voice of Delilah…but does she know more than she is letting on?

Overall, I quiet enjoyed the game. The setting is, again, very lovely. I mean look at that sunset over there to the left! The story of Henry’s past and the way he and Delilah slowly learn more about each other and come to trust each other is well-developed and seems very realistically done.

The voice work was very well done, with both characters coming alive magnificently. Their performances were perfectly nuanced and matching the scenes and actions going on. Likewise, the music was well-chosen, primarily instrumental pieces that slid in during key times to either ramp up the tension or reflect the calmness of the scene. The only mildly glaring choice was the song used for the ending, though it was jarring more for suddenly having a singer and lyrics more explicitly singing to the theme versus the sound of the song itself.

The controls were a little difficult for me, personally, as I’m not a big one for keyboard heavy game play. It took me a ridiculously long time to fully get the hang of how to answer on the radio, for example, and I was grateful that most actions would also remind you of the keys to hit to do things. Movement is done with a mix of the traditional keyboard presses (ASWD) and using the mouse to aim the character. The mouse is also used for a few other actions, so you’ll still need to keep a hand over there as well.

The game does offer you various choices in many of the conversations, once you get past the opening narration. I’m not sure if they actually have an effect on the overall story, though, or even change the tone/flavor of Henry’s relationship with Delilah at all. I suspect they don’t, overall, as later in the game an event is referenced that I didn’t experience, but which it was presumed I had.

Speaking of the ending…I’m still processing that. The game left me feeling a bit sad for everyone involved, but it also left me with some questions that remain unanswered. It isn’t so much that it felt incomplete as if it felt there was something I missed or somehow overlooked something important. Is the ending really as simple as it seems, or…I suspect I’ll be reading in the discussion boards to see if anyone has any insights or theories on it all.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up playing again, just to see if my choices do make a difference. Clocking in at around 4 hours, it was just the right length for spending time with on a nice Saturday afternoon, and there is an open exploration mode available if you just want to enjoy the setting without story events taking forcing you forward. It is also rather nice to be able to walk in the woods without worrying about bears (maybe), cougars, or needing 20 gallons of DEET to keep the mosquito away.

Firewatch’s usual price is currently $19.99. I’d probably aim to get it on sale, but then I usually recommend that for any Steam game because you know it’s gonna happen eventually LOL

]]>https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/04/2019-game-backlog-april-update/feed/016652019 Goals: 1st Quarter Progresshttps://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/04/2019-goals-1st-quarter-progress/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/04/2019-goals-1st-quarter-progress/#respondMon, 01 Apr 2019 13:00:21 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=1516I decided this year to switch from monthly goal updates to quarterly ones. I’d done similar with another set of goals I have and found it pretty helpful, so let’s see how it goes here 🙂 The quarter started off with losing my big love machine, Blue, to rapid onset kidney failure. Understandably, this had […]

]]>I decided this year to switch from monthly goal updates to quarterly ones. I’d done similar with another set of goals I have and found it pretty helpful, so let’s see how it goes here

The quarter started off with losing my big love machine, Blue, to rapid onset kidney failure. Understandably, this had me fairly blah for a few weeks, where I filled some of the loneliness with building my Lego Ghostbusters set. In the year up to her passing, Blue had high monthly medical costs, which was a major reason my budget was so derailed. My last remaining girl, Yuki, was then also diagnosed with kidney disease, fortunately early stage, and kidney stones. So she is now on a prescription food, but otherwise no medication at this point.

As such, I have about $400-600/month of my budget freed to go to debt repayment. I was able to get a 0% balance transfer APR to help me tackle the credit card debt, which should help speed up the pay down quite a bit, versus the variable rate I had before. So I’m slowly eating the balance down bit by bit. I was also able to get the emergency fund back up, which was a bonus.

That said, here’s how I did January-March of 2019!

Financials

Emergency fund back to $1,000 – DONE!

Credit card balance below $6,000

Fitness and Health

Strength training targets – aiming to go up in weights at the end of April

]]>https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/04/2019-goals-1st-quarter-progress/feed/01516Review: Oishi Sushihttps://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/02/review-oishi-sushi/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/02/review-oishi-sushi/#respondTue, 26 Feb 2019 03:44:26 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=1584My partner and I decided to try Oishi Sushi for lunch today as we’re always excited to try new Asian restaurants. The most important part of any restaurant is, of course, the food, so let’s start there. They have a pretty extensive menu, including a good selection of sushi, rolls, and some twists on the […]

]]>My partner and I decided to try Oishi Sushi for lunch today as we’re always excited to try new Asian restaurants. The most important part of any restaurant is, of course, the food, so let’s start there. They have a pretty extensive menu, including a good selection of sushi, rolls, and some twists on the rolls like baked and deep-fried ones. We ordered the deluxe tempura and miso soup to start with, and he got the baked lobster roll for his lunch while I went for the sashimi & sushi lunch special.

The miso soup was absolutely delicious! Nice flavor, nice clouding, and was a great start to the meal.

The tempura was good; we got a mix of squash, sweet potato, one onion ring, and a chunk of broccoli. The batter was the right thickness and the vegetables were all done perfectly, though I would say the batter was fairly basic. It wasn’t as tasty as the tempura I’ve had at other restaurants, but not bad either. (I forgot to get a picture, sorry!)

My partner absolutely loved his baked lobster roll. I tried a bit of it and it did have great flavor and I’d agree it was a pretty good dish, and a little different from the norm. He also was full after, so it was a good size for lunch.

For my sashimi & sushi, it’s a bit of a mix. The sashimi was cut way too thick, especially the tuna. Likewise with the nigiri pieces, the fish was so thick it made it hard to eat in one bite the way it generally should be. The selection of sushi pieces was nice, and included tuna, salmon, shrimp, albacore, and one fish I forgot to ask them to identify. They all tasted fine and were perfectly serviceable bits of sushi. That said, the rice had almost no flavor and the tuna, at least, was not of the quality I’ve had at other local places. It didn’t quite have that “bang” higher quality tuna has. The rest were fine, though, and while I’ve had other white fish be very fishy, this one wasn’t.

Beyond the food, the atmosphere was great. Lovely decor, gorgeous woodwork, though I do wish they’d skipped the big TVs. It detracts from the otherwise nice ambiance. The outdoor seating doesn’t quite fit the look of the restaurant, but I’m guessing that was done to fit the area that seemed to be set up for live music instead.

As for service…well, it’s a new restaurant and they still clearly had some kinks to work out. The wait staff was very sweet, soft-spoken, and a little shy, but they seemed to be trying their best. That said, our waitress didn’t know some of the basics of the menu – like saying they didn’t have Sprite when the menu says they do – and there were some minor mistakes with our order. The biggest was we ordered the deluxe tempura (which had shrimp), but got the veggie instead. They fixed it on the receipt, so we didn’t mind. They also forgot the salad that came with my lunch special, but again fixed it quickly. The staff was great about keeping drinks refreshed and being sure we enjoyed everything.

Lastly, price. Even for lunch, this is not really a low-cost option, depending on what you get. We split the ticket in half since the waitress defaulted to that (and we didn’t want to deal with trying to say what went with who). So it ended up being about $22 each, plus tip. A very pricey lunch indeed.

I would certainly try Oishi Sushi again, though I’ll probably wait awhile to let them get into their groove and hopefully the lunch chef can get a better handle on properly thin slicing the fish.

]]>https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/02/review-oishi-sushi/feed/01584Creekside Market added to the ICEE Guidehttps://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/02/creekside-market-added-to-the-icee-guide/
https://eclectic-thoughts.com/2019/02/creekside-market-added-to-the-icee-guide/#respondMon, 04 Feb 2019 19:45:24 +0000https://eclectic-thoughts.com/?p=1558Like the title says, White Creek Community Center’s Creekside Market on the A&M Campus now has ICEE which means they are now in the ICEE Guide! 🙂